The disclosure herein relates to the field of communication networks, and more particularly to communication networks on board aircraft.
Aircraft generally have one or more on-board communication networks that are provided to enable communications between on-board items of equipment, in particular on-board computers such as LRUs (‘Line Replaceable Unit’, a replaceable unit specific to one function) or LRMs (‘Line Replaceable Module’, a generic replaceable unit). In order to satisfy regulatory requirements in terms of certification of the aircraft, an on-board communication network has to be deterministic. A communication network is deterministic if it enables a transmission of information between items of equipment that are connected to this network with a duration of transmission (i.e. a latency) of less than a predetermined duration, and a guarantee that information will not be lost during the transmission. The standard ARINC 664 Part 7 defines a deterministic on-board communication network, based on a full-duplex Ethernet technology. Such a network may correspond, for example, to an AFDX® communication network.
A network in accordance with the standard ARINC 664 Part 7 comprises at least one switch that makes it possible to interconnect items of equipment and end systems that provide functions of sending and receiving data in the network. Each communication between items of equipment of the network uses virtual links that are predefined when the network is configured. A virtual link is defined between a sending item of equipment and one or more receiving items of equipment, via one or more switches of the network. All communications between items of equipment are defined in advance, through the definition of the virtual links, in order to enable the switches to be configured. Each switch includes a configuration table that is predefined depending on the virtual links passing through this switch.
A switch generally includes a large number of communication ports, such as Ethernet ports, for example 24 ports for some switches. Now, the greater the number of communication ports of the switch, the greater the number of virtual links that are liable to pass through this switch, and the more complex and larger in size the configuration table. Given the complexity of such a switch, in order to respect requirements in particular in terms of latency time, this switch is generally implemented by a specific electronic device. The same applies for the end systems.
A modern aircraft may include a high number of specific devices implementing switches or end systems. This results in a mass, a bulk and an electrical consumption that it would be beneficial to reduce in order to improve the performance of the aircraft.
Alternative solutions exist that use processors and generic Ethernet controllers. However, these solutions do not enable sufficient rates to be achieved.
It is desirable to mitigate these drawbacks of the state of the art. It is in particular desirable to propose a system that makes it possible to reduce the cost and the weight of the deterministic switched Ethernet networks using virtual links, while attaining sufficient rates. It is desirable in addition to define a system that is designed to host applications, end systems and at least one switch in a single item of equipment.